The One Year Bible TLB (158 page)
Read The One Year Bible TLB Online
Authors: Tyndale
Stop listening to teaching that contradicts what you know is right.
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A worthless witness cares nothing for truth—he enjoys his sinning too much.
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Mockers and rebels shall be severely punished.
July 25King Abijah was buried in Jerusalem. Then his son Asa became the new king of Judah, and there was peace in the land for the first ten years of his reign,
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for Asa was careful to obey the Lord his God.
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He demolished the heathen altars on the hills, and broke down the obelisks, and chopped down the shameful Asherim idols,
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and demanded that the entire nation obey the commandments of the Lord God of their ancestors.
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Also, he removed the sun images from the hills and the incense altars from every one of Judah’s cities. That is why God gave his kingdom peace.
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This made it possible for him to build walled cities throughout Judah.
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“Now is the time to do it, while the Lord is blessing us with peace because of our obedience to him,” he told his people. “Let us build and fortify cities now, with walls, towers, gates, and bars.” So they went ahead with these projects very successfully.
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King Asa’s Judean army was 300,000 strong, equipped with light shields and spears. His army of Benjaminites numbered 280,000, armed with large shields and bows. Both armies were composed of well-trained, brave men.
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But now he was attacked by an army of 1,000,000 troops from Ethiopia with 300 chariots, under the leadership of General Zerah. They advanced to the city of Mareshah, in the valley of Zephathah, and King Asa sent his troops to battle with them there.
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“O Lord,” he cried out to God, “no one else can help us! Here we are, powerless against this mighty army. Oh, help us, Lord our God! For we trust in you alone to rescue us, and in your name we attack this vast horde. Don’t let mere men defeat you!”
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Then the Lord defeated the Ethiopians, and Asa and the army of Judah triumphed as the Ethiopians fled.
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They chased them as far as Gerar, and the entire Ethiopian army was wiped out so that not one man remained; for the Lord and his army destroyed them all. Then the army of Judah carried off vast quantities of plunder.
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While they were at Gerar they attacked all the cities in that area, and terror from the Lord came upon the residents. As a result, additional vast quantities of plunder were collected from these cities too.
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They not only plundered the cities but destroyed the cattle tents and captured great herds of sheep and camels before finally returning to Jerusalem.
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Then the Spirit of God came upon Azariah (son of Oded),
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and he went out to meet King Asa as he was returning from the battle.
“Listen to me, Asa! Listen, armies of Judah and Benjamin!” he shouted. “The Lord will stay with you as long as you stay with him! Whenever you look for him, you will find him. But if you forsake him, he will forsake you.
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For a long time now, over in Israel, the people haven’t worshiped the true God and have not had a true priest to teach them. They have lived without God’s laws.
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But whenever they have turned again to the Lord God of Israel in their distress and searched for him he has helped them.
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In their times of rebellion against God there was no peace. Problems troubled the nation on every hand. Crime was on the increase everywhere.
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There were external wars and internal fighting of city against city, for God was plaguing them with all sorts of trouble.
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But you men of Judah, keep up the good work and don’t get discouraged, for you will be rewarded.”
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When King Asa heard this message from God, he took courage and destroyed all the idols in the land of Judah and Benjamin and in the cities he had captured in the hill country of Ephraim, and he rebuilt the altar of the Lord in front of the Temple.
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Then he summoned all the people of Judah and Benjamin and the immigrants from Israel (for many had come from the territories of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon in Israel when they saw that the Lord God was with King Asa).
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They all came to Jerusalem in June of the fifteenth year of King Asa’s reign
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and sacrificed to the Lord seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep—it was part of the plunder they had captured in the battle.
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Then they entered into a contract to worship only the Lord God of their fathers
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and agreed that anyone who refused to do this must die—whether old or young, man or woman.
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They shouted out their oath of loyalty to God with trumpets blaring and horns sounding.
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All were happy for this covenant with God, for they had entered into it with all their hearts and wills and wanted him above everything else, and they found him! And he gave them peace throughout the nation.
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King Asa even removed his mother Maacah from being the queen mother because she made an Asherah idol; he cut down the idol and crushed and burned it at Kidron Brook.
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Over in Israel the idol-temples were not removed. But here in Judah and Benjamin the heart of King Asa was perfect before God throughout his lifetime.
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He brought back into the Temple the silver and gold bowls that he and his father had dedicated to the Lord.
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So there was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of King Asa’s reign.
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In the thirty-sixth year of King Asa’s reign, King Baasha of Israel declared war on him and built the fortress
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of Ramah in order to control the road to Judah.
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Asa’s response was to take the silver and gold from the Temple and from the palace, and to send it to King Ben-hadad of Syria at Damascus with this message:
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“Let us renew the mutual security pact that there was between your father and my father. See, here is silver and gold to induce you to break your alliance with King Baasha of Israel, so that he will leave me alone.”
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Ben-hadad agreed to King Asa’s request and mobilized his armies to attack Israel. They destroyed the cities of Ijon, Dan, Abel-maim and all of the supply centers in Naphtali.
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As soon as King Baasha of Israel heard what was happening, he discontinued building Ramah and gave up his plan to attack Judah.
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Then King Asa and the people of Judah went out to Ramah and carried away the building stones and timbers and used them to build Geba and Mizpah instead.
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About that time the prophet Hanani came to King Asa and told him, “Because you have put your trust in the king of Syria instead of in the Lord your God, the army of the king of Syria has escaped from you.
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Don’t you remember what happened to the Ethiopians and Libyans and their vast army, with all of their chariots and cavalrymen? But you relied then on the Lord, and he delivered them all into your hand.
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For the eyes of the Lord search back and forth across the whole earth, looking for people whose hearts are perfect toward him, so that he can show his great power in helping them. What a fool you have been! From now on you shall have wars.”
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Asa was so angry with the prophet for saying this that he threw him into jail. And Asa oppressed all the people at that time.
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The rest of the biography of Asa is written in
The Annals of the Kings of Israel and Judah.
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In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa became seriously diseased in his feet, but he didn’t go to the Lord with the problem but to the doctors.
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So he died in the forty-first year of his reign and was buried in his own vault that he had hewn out for himself in Jerusalem. He was laid on a bed perfumed with sweet spices and ointments, and his people made a very great burning of incense for him at his funeral.
O Israel, my people! O my Jewish brothers! How I long for you to come to Christ. My heart is heavy within me, and I grieve bitterly day and night because of you. Christ knows and the Holy Spirit knows that it is no mere pretense when I say that I would be willing to be forever damned if that would save you.
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God has given you so much, but still you will not listen to him. He took you as his own special, chosen people and led you along with a bright cloud of glory and told you how very much he wanted to bless you. He gave you his rules for daily life so you would know what he wanted you to do. He let you worship him and gave you mighty promises.
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Great men of God were your fathers, and Christ himself was one of you, a Jew so far as his human nature is concerned, he who now rules over all things. Praise God forever!
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Well then, has God failed to fulfill his promises to the Jews? No! For these promises are only to those who are truly Jews.
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And not everyone born into a Jewish family is truly a Jew!
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Just the fact that they come from Abraham doesn’t make them truly Abraham’s children. For the Scriptures say that the promises apply only to Abraham’s son Isaac and Isaac’s descendants, though Abraham had other children too.
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This means that not all of Abraham’s children are children of God, but only those who believe the promise of salvation which he made to Abraham.
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For God had promised, “Next year I will give you and Sarah a son.”
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And years later, when this son Isaac was grown up and married and Rebecca his wife was about to bear him twin children, God told her that Esau, the child born first, would be a servant to Jacob, his twin brother. In the words of the Scripture, “I chose to bless Jacob but not Esau.” And God said this before the children were even born, before they had done anything either good or bad. This proves that God was doing what he had decided from the beginning; it was not because of what the children did but because of what God wanted and chose.
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Was God being unfair? Of course not.
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For God had said to Moses, “If I want to be kind to someone, I will. And I will take pity on anyone I want to.”
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And so God’s blessings are not given just because someone decides to have them or works hard to get them. They are given because God takes pity on those he wants to.
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Pharaoh, king of Egypt, was an example of this fact. For God told him he had given him the kingdom of Egypt for the very purpose of displaying the awesome power of God against him, so that all the world would hear about God’s glorious name.
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So you see, God is kind to some just because he wants to be, and he makes some refuse to listen.
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Well then, why does God blame them for not listening? Haven’t they done what he made them do?
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No, don’t say that. Who are you to criticize God? Should the thing made say to the one who made it, “Why have you made me like this?”
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When a man makes a jar out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar beautiful, to be used for holding flowers, and another to throw garbage into?
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Does not God have a perfect right to show his fury and power against those who are fit only for destruction, those he has been patient with for all this time?
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And he has a right to take others such as ourselves, who have been made for pouring the riches of his glory into, whether we are Jews or Gentiles, and to be kind to us so that everyone can see how very great his glory is.
The heavens are telling the glory of God; they are a marvelous display of his craftsmanship.
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Day and night they keep on telling about God.
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Without a sound or word, silent in the skies, their message reaches out to all the world. The sun lives in the heavens where God placed it
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and moves out across the skies as radiant as a bridegroom
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going to his wedding, or as joyous as an athlete looking forward to a race!
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The sun crosses the heavens from end to end, and nothing can hide from its heat.
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God’s laws are perfect. They protect us, make us wise, and give us joy and light.
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God’s laws are pure, eternal, just.
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They are more desirable than gold. They are sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb.
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For they warn us away from harm and give success to those who obey them.
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But how can I ever know what sins are lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults.
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And keep me from deliberate wrongs; help me to stop doing them. Only then can I be free of guilt and innocent of some great crime.
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May my spoken words and unspoken thoughts be pleasing even to you, O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer.